Lehigh Canal could use some volunteer help

Turtles sun themselves on logs as bottles and debris float down the Lehigh… (KEVIN MINGORA, THE MORNING…)

April 17, 2013|Bill White

I don't need a lot of prodding to pursue stories that involve being outdoors in the spring.

Still, I think even in lousier weather, I'd have been interested in the email I got the other day from Ron Snyder of Orefield, particularly with Earth Day coming up. The email's subject line was: "Lehigh Canal, Our National Treasure (used as a dump)."

Snyder is concerned about the section of the Lehigh Canal between the Allentown Canal Park and the first lock on the way to Bethlehem.

"I am appalled at the condition of the canal," he wrote. "It seems people use the canal as their own trash dump. I find plastic bottles, glass bottles, automobile tires, 55 gallon drums, shoes, clothes, basketballs, soccer balls and almost anything else. Also I encounter trees that were blown down or trees that are growing over the canal and making it difficult to get around.

"The last several years my daughter and I spent several days picking up trash in the canal. We would fill up the canoe in about three hours and only cover about 1 mile. It is a hopeless cause, but we do it every year.

"We have a National Treasure right here in the Lehigh Valley, but does anybody care?"

He also complained about the way the rail yard on the north side of the canal has encroached on the waterway, causing it to narrow drastically in some spots and leaving all kinds of trash behind. "The railroad discards its used iron pins, plates, screws, ties and even small pieces of track into the canal or on the bank," he wrote.

He challenged me to travel this stretch with him. So I joined Snyder last week to see what he was talking about.

We made a two-hour round trip walking tour of the area, with the canal on our left and the Lehigh River on our right. He kept up a running commentary about the problems we were seeing along the canal. Some were natural, including fallen trees and untended brush that extends well into the canal in many places. Others were decidedly unnatural.

"There's a 5-gallon bucket right there," he pointed out in one spot. "We found two 55-gallon drums submerged. We should be able to see at least one of them."

Heavy rain the night before had left the water muddy, so we couldn't see a lot of the submerged tires, drums and other trash he and his daughter had seen from their canoe. But I had no trouble seeing lots of run-of-the-mill trash — mostly bottles— and big cans, wooden ties, iron plates and other debris that apparently had been dumped from the rail yard.

In one spot not far from the lock, a tree and gathered debris blocked the entire waterway. Nearby the brush that extended well into the canal had collected an array of bottles, buckets, even what looked like a beach ball.

"This place is a historical site as far I'm concerned," he said, "and people trash it like they don't care. I can't get my mind around that, why they do something like that."

To put what we had seen in context, I called Dennis Scholl, Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor outreach coordinator, whom I've worked with on a couple of other stories about the canal.

He acknowledged the problems Snyder talked about, but he said the Allentown stretch isn't unusual. The canal is a low priority for most municipalities, and he said some areas actually look worse.

"It's a situation of people having absolutely no respect for the area they use as a recreation source," he said. "It's a matter of trying to educate the public that nature is not a trash barrel." He said fishing debris is a particular problem because fishing line is so dangerous to wildlife.

Still, for him, the biggest problem with maintaining the canal is the encroachment of invasive vegetation, which not only is unsightly but crowds out the native plants that belong there. He said the canal could use a big landscaping service to come in as its angel and spend a couple of days tearing invasive brush out and removing fallen trees.

Instead, the burden of trying to maintain the canal often falls on the volunteers known as "trail tenders." Scholl said the Lehigh Valley chapter has 25-30 active volunteers, only about a dozen of whom come out regularly.

The trail tenders try to maintain ecological balance along the trail by eradicating invasive plants and replacing them with native grasses, wildflowers, shrubs and trees, as well as performing regular cleanups and building picnic tables and other structures for trail users. You can find a schedule of their spring cleanups at the Heritage Corridor website.

"We do as much as we possibly can," Scholl said, "but we do not have enough members to keep up on the situation." He said they devote a lot of attention to preserving historic structures along the canal, including the locks, some of which are in bad shape.

At the very least, consider this a reminder to carry out whatever you bring with you when you're hiking, fishing, biking or making other use of the canal and towpath. Better yet, consider becoming a trail tender. Call 610-923-3548, ext. 225, or email info@delawareandlehigh.org to sign up or for more information.